


To Lie in Cold Obstruction

by orphan_account



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Drabble, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-11
Updated: 2013-01-11
Packaged: 2017-11-25 01:37:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/633707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maybe one day a civilisation will rise and end the Reaper menace once and for all... but this cycle is doomed because of her failure and across the Milky Way countless billions of unborn lives cry out in mutual despair for the loss of their would-be saviour.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Lie in Cold Obstruction

**Author's Note:**

> Toying with the idea that Shepard is knocked unconscious by the Reaper's laser and dreams the final encounter with the Catalyst. She awakens for just long enough to realise that everything she has ever known is doomed. That it was all for nothing.

The pain is tremendous. All-encompassing, exquisite and terrible. Her eyes flutter in the dark.

 

_A dream. Just a dream._

 

“God—”

 

So many dead. Friends and enemies both.

 

Strangers.

 

_Everyone._

 

The dream lingers. A final insult. She _remembers_ the Reapers brought low. Destroyed in cleansing fire. The sacrifice—EDI, the geth, the synthetics that keep her alive. She remembers, and the taste of bitter, bloody defeat is worse for it. Victory lingers just beyond her grasp. Eludes her. Taunts her. Watches her die.

 

Commander Shepard doesn't cry. Cannot. Not since Akuze turned her stone. But now the tears come unbidden. Broken at last. Crushed to dust beneath the weight of the galaxy. She weeps, not for Earth nor organic life's unavoidable damnation but for herself.

 

For the bitter burden that has been hers since Eden Prime.

 

For the friends who will mourn her death.

 

For the children she will never have.

 

For relief.

 

_It's over. Close your eyes._


End file.
